ALICE AND ADAH
At Alice's request, Adah and Sam stayed altogether at Spring Bank, but
Alice was the ruling power--Alice, the one whom Chloe and Claib
consulted; one concerning the farm, and the other concerning the
kitchen--Alice, to whom Aunt Eunice looked for counsel, and Densie for
comfort--Alice, who remembered all the doctor's directions, taking the
entire charge of Hugh's medicines herself--and Alice, who wrote to Mrs.
Worthington, apprising her of Hugh's serious illness. They hoped he was
not dangerous, she said, but he was very sick, and Mrs. Worthington
would do well to come at once. She did not mention 'Lina, but the idea
never crossed her mind that a sister could stay away from choice when a
brother was so ill; and it was with unfeigned surprise that she one
morning saw Mrs. Worthington and Lulu alighting at the gate, but no
'Lina with them.
"She was so happy at Saratoga," Mrs. Worthington said, when a little
over the first flurry of her arrival. "So happy, too, with Mrs. Richards
that she could not tear herself away, unless her mother should find Hugh
positively dangerous, in which case she should, of course, come at
once."
This was the mother's charitable explanation, made with a bitter sigh as
she recalled 'Lina's heartless anger when the letter was received, as if
Hugh were to blame, as, indeed, 'Lina seemed to think he was.
Meantime Alice, in her own room, was reading 'Lina's note, containing a
most glowing description of the delightful time she was having at
Saratoga, and how hard it would be to leave.
"I know dear Hugh is in good hands," she wrote, "and it is so pleasant
here that I really do want to stay a little longer. Pray write to me
just how Hugh is, and if I must come home. What a delightful lady that
Mrs. Richards is--not one bit stiff as I can see. I don't know what
people mean to call her proud. She has promised, if mamma will leave me
here, to be my chaperon, and it's possible we may visit New York
together, so as to be there when the prince arrives. Won't that be
grand? She talks so much of you that sometimes I'm really jealous.
Perhaps I may go to Terrace Hill before I return, but rather hope not,
it makes me fidgety to think of meeting the Misses Richards, though, of
course, I know I shall like them, particularly Anna. Oh, I most forgot!
Irving is here yet, and has a sister, Mrs. Ellsworth, with him now. She
is very elegant, and very much admired. Tell Adah I heard Mrs. Ellsworth
say she wished she could find some young person as governess for her
little girl, and kind of companion for her. I did not speak of Adah, but
I thought of her, knowing she desired some such situation. She might
write to Mrs. Ellsworth here, but I'd rather she should not refer to me
as having known her. You see Mrs. Ellsworth would directly inquire about
her antecedents, and to a stranger it would not sound well that she came
to us one stormy night with that child, whose father we know nothing
about, and if I told the truth, as I always try to do, I should have to
tell this. So it will be better for Adah not to know us, even if she
should come to Mrs. Ellsworth. You will understand me, I am sure, and
believe that I am actuated by the kindest of motives. She can direct to
Mrs. Julia Ellsworth, Union Hall, Saratoga Springs. By the way, tell
mother not to forget that dress. She'll know what you mean.
"Mr. Stanley seemed quite blue after you went away. I should not be
surprised to hear of his being at Spring Bank some day. Isn't it funny
that you had to go right there? Perhaps it's as well for you that Hugh
is sick. You will got a better impression. _Au revoir_."
Not a word was there in this letter of the doctor, but Alice understood
it all the same. He was the attraction which kept the selfish girl from
her brother's side. "May she be happy with him, if, indeed, he has a
right to win her," was Alice's mental comment, shuddering as she
recalled the time when she was pleased with the handsome doctor, and
silently thanking God, who had saved her from much sorrow. Hearing Mrs.
Worthington in the hall, and remembering what 'Lina said concerning the
dress, she stepped to the door and delivered the message, wondering that
Mrs. Worthington should seem so confounded, and stammer so, as she
turned to Adah, just coming up the stairs, and said:
"Have you ever done anything with that old muslin 'Lina gave you?"
"Never till to-day," Adah replied; "when it occurred to me that if this
hot weather lasted, I might find it comfortable, provided I could fix
it, so I sent Mug for it, and she is ripping the waist."
Mrs. Worthington was not a good dissembler, and her next question was:
"Did you find anything in the pocket?"
"Yes, my letter, written weeks ago. Your daughter must have forgotten
it. I intrusted it to her care the day Miss Tiffton called."
Adah was just thinking of speaking freely to Alice Johnson concerning
her future course, when Mrs. Worthington met her in the upper hall.
"I'll go to her now," she said, as Mrs. Worthington left her, and
knocking timidly at Alice's door, she asked permission to enter.
"Oh, certainly, I have something to tell you," Alice said, motioning her
to a chair, and sitting down beside her. "Miss Worthington sent me a
note in which she speaks of you."
"Of me?" and Adah colored slightly. "I did not know she ever thought of
me. Why did she not come with her mother?"
"She is enjoying herself so much is the reason she gives, though I fancy
there is another more powerful one. Perhaps the note will enlighten
you," and Alice passed it to Adah, not so much to show her how heartless
'Lina was, as to see if in what she had said of the Richards family
there was not something which Adah would recognize.
That look in Willie's face had almost grown to a certainty with Alice,
who saw Anna, or Asenath, or Eudora, and sometimes John himself in every
move of the little fellow. Silently Adah read the note, her paled cheeks
turning scarlet at what 'Lina had said of herself and Mrs. Ellsworth.
The Richards family were nothing to her. She only seized upon and
treasured up the words "with a child about whose father we know
nothing." Slowly the tears gathered in her eyes and finally fell in
torrents as Alice asked:
"What made her cry?"
"Oh, Miss Johnson," and Adah hid her face in Alice's lap, "I'm thinking
of George--of Willie's father. Will he never come back, or the world
know that I thought I was a lawful wife? Yes, and I sometimes believe so
now, or I should surely go wild, Miss Johnson," and Adah lifted up her
head, disclosing a face which Alice scarcely recognized, for the strange
expression there. "Miss Johnson, if I knew that George deliberately
planned my ruin under the guise of a mock marriage, and then when it
suited him deserted me as a toy of which he was tired, I should hate
him!--hate him!"
"I frighten you, Miss Johnson," she said, as she saw how Alice shrank
away from the dark eyes in which there was a fierce, resentful gleam,
unlike sweet Adah Hastings. "I used to frighten myself when I saw in my
eyes the demon which whispered suicide."
"Oh, Adah," said Alice, "you could not have dreamed that!"
"I did," and Adah spoke sadly now. "It was kind in God to save me, and
I've tried to love Him better since; but there's something savage in my
nature, something I must have inherited from one of my parents, and
sometimes my heart, which at first was full of love for George, goes out
against him for his base treachery."
"And yet you love him still?" Alice said, as she smoothed the beautiful
brown hair.
"I suppose I do. A kind word from him would bring me back, but will it
ever be spoken? Shall we ever meet again?"
"Where did he go?" Alice asked.
"He went to Europe, so he said."
There was a voluntary shudder as Alice recalled the time when Dr.
Richards came home from Europe, and she had been flattered with his
attentions.
"I may be unjust to him," she thought, then to Adah she said: "As you
have told me your story in part, will you tell me the whole?"
There was no vindictiveness now in Adah's face, nothing save a calm,
gentle expression such as it was used to wear, and the soft brown eyes
drooped mournfully beneath the heavy lashes as she told the story of her
wrongs.
"And Hugh?" Alice said. "Why did you come to him? Had you known him
before?"
"Hugh was the other witness, bribed by my guardian to lend himself a
party to the deception! I never saw him till that night; neither, I
think, did George. My guardian planned the whole."
"Hugh Worthington is not the man I took him for," and Alice spoke
bitterly.
"You mistake him," she cried eagerly. "My guardian, Mr. Monroe, was
pleased with the young Kentuckian, and led him easily. He coaxed him to
drink a glass of wine, which Hugh says must have been drugged, for it
took away his power to act as he would otherwise have done, and when in
this condition he consented to whatever Mr. Monroe proposed, keeping
silent while the horrid farce went on. But he has repented so bitterly,
and been so kind to me and Willie."
"And your guardian," interrupted Alice, "is it not strange that he
should have acted so cruel a part?"
"Yes, that's the strangest part of all, and he was so kind to me. I
cannot understand it, or where he is, though I've sometimes imagined he
must be dead; or in prison," and Adah thought of what Sam had said
concerning Sullivan, the negro-stealer.
"What do you mean; why should he be in prison?" Alice asked, and Adah
replied by telling her what Sam had said, and the reason she had for
thinking Sullivan and her guardian, Monroe, one and the same.
"I too am marked," and with a quick, nervous motion, she touched the
spot where the blue lines were faintly visible. "I know not how I came
by it, but it annoys me terribly. Mr. Monroe knew how I felt about it,
and the day before that marriage he said to me: 'It will disappear with
your children. They will not be marked,' and Willie isn't."
Just then Willie's voice was heard in the hall, and Alice admitted him
into the room. She kissed his rosy cheek, and said to Adah: "Do you know
I think he looks like Hugh."
"Yes," and Adah spoke sadly. "I know he does, and I am sorry for Hugh's
sake, as it must annoy him. Neither can I account for it, for I am
certainly nothing to Hugh. But there's another look in Willie's face,
his father's. Oh, Miss Johnson, George was handsome."
"Can you describe him, or will it be too painful?" Alice asked, and Adah
told how George Hastings looked, while Alice's handy worked nervously
together, for Adah was describing Dr. Richards.
"And you've never seen him since, nor guessed where his proud mother
lived?"
"Never, and when only the wrong is remembered, I think I never care to
see or hear from him again. But the noble, self-denying Hugh! I would
almost die for him; I ask God every day to bring him some good fortune
at last. He will, I know He will, and Hugh shall yet--"
She stopped short, struck with an idea which had never before entered
her mind. Hugh and Alice! Oh, if that could be.
"Why do you look at me?" Alice asked, as Adah sat drinking in the
dazzling beauty which she wished might one day shine for Hugh.
"I am thinking how beautiful you are, and wondering if you ever loved
any one; did you?"
"Not like you," Alice answered frankly. "When a little girl of thirteen
I owed my life to a youth with many characteristics like Hugh
Worthington. I liked him, and wanted so much to find him, but could not.
Then I grew to womanhood, and another crossed my path, well skilled in
finding every avenue to a maiden's heart. I did not love him. I am glad
that I did not, for he was unworthy of my love; but I fancied him a
while, and my heart did ache a little when mother on her deathbed talked
to me against him. It was my money he wanted most, and when he thought I
had none, he left me, saying as I heard, that I 'was a nice-ish kind of
girl, rather good-looking, but too blue for him.'"
"And the other, the boy like Hugh, have you met him again?" Adah asked,
feeling a little disappointed, when Alice replied:
"Once, I am very sure."
Alice heard the faint sigh, and hope died out for Hugh. Poor Hugh! Alice
was thinking of him, too, and said at last: "Was Rocket sold to Colonel
Tiffton for debt?"
"Yes, for 'Lina's debts, contracted at Harney's. I've heard of his
boasting that Hugh should yet be compelled to see him galloping down the
pike upon his idol."
"He never shall!" and Alice spoke under her breath, asking further
questions concerning the sale of Colonel Tiffton's house, and now much
Mosside was worth.
Adah did not know. She was only posted with regard to Rocket, who was
pawned for five hundred dollars. "Once I insanely hoped that I might
help redeem him--that God would find a work for me to do--and my heart
was so happy for a moment."
"What did you think of doing?" Alice asked, glancing at the delicate
young girl, who looked so unaccustomed to toil of any kind.
"I thought to be a governess or waiting maid," and Adah's lip began to
quiver. Then she told how her letter had been carelessly forgotten.
"Do you remember the address?" and Alice waited curiously for the
answer.
"Yes, 'A.E.R. Snowdon.' You came from Snowdon Miss Johnson, and I've
wanted so much to ask if you knew 'A.E.R.,' but have never dared talk
freely with you till to-day."
Alice was confounded. Surely the leadings of Providence were too plainly
evident to be unnoticed. There was a reason why Adah Hastings must go to
Anna Richards, and Alice hastened to reply: "'A.E.R.' is no less a
person than Anna Richards whose mother and brother are now at Saratoga."
"Oh, I can't go there. They are too proud. They would hate me for
Willie, and ask me for his father."
Very gently Alice talked to her of Snowdon and Anna Richards, whom Adah
was sure to like.
"I'm so glad for your sake that it has come around at last," she said.
"Will you write to her to-day, or shall I for you? Perhaps I had
better!"
"Oh, no, I would rather go unannounced--rather Miss Anna should like me
for my self, if I go," and Adah's voice trembled, for she shrank
nervously from the thought of meeting the Richards family.
If 'Lina liked the old lady, she certainly could not, and the very
thought of these elder sisters, in all their primness, dismayed and
disheartened her.
While this was passing through her mind, she sat twining Willie's silken
curls around her finger, and apparently listening to what Alice was now
saying of Dr. Richards; but Alice might as well have talked to the winds
for any impression she made. Adah was looking far into the future,
wondering what it had in store for her, as if in Anna Richards she would
indeed find the sympathizing friend which Alice said she would.
Gradually, as she thought of Anna, her heart went out strangely toward
her.
"I will go to Miss Richards," she said at last; "but I cannot go till
Hugh is better, till he knows and approves. I must take his blessing
with me. Do you think it will be long before he regains his reason?"
Alice could not tell.
"Do you correspond with Miss Richards?" Adah suddenly asked.
"No. I will send a note of introduction by you, though."
"Please don't," and Adah spoke pleadingly. "I should have to give it if
you did, and I'd rather go by myself. I know it would be better to have
your influence, but it is a fancy of mine not to say that I ever knew
you or any one at Spring Bank."
Now it was settled that Adah should go, she felt a restless, impatient
desire to be gone, questioning the doctor closely with regard to Hugh,
who, it seemed to her, would never awaken from the state of
unconsciousness into which he had fallen, and from which he only rallied
for an instant, just long enough to recognize his mother, but never
Alice or herself, both of whom watched over him day and night.